Today, I fear we're facing a crisis in which a chunk of working-class America risks being calcified into an underclass, marked by drugs, despair, family decline, high incarceration rates and a diminishing role of jobs and education as escalators of upward mobility.
Boys raising boys might seem a recipe for Lord-of-the-Flies chaos, but these teenagers forced Lorem to go to school, seeing education as an escalator to a better life.
For a country that prides itself on social mobility, where higher education has been a traditional escalator to a better life, cutbacks in access to college are a scandal.
That's the role that education historically has played — but the escalator is now breaking down.
And, incidentally, it's also why I write about education in the U.S.: whether in Vietnam or in the United States, education is the most effective escalator out of poverty.
But there cannot be any doubt that, on average, the education offered in private schools has so many advantages: smaller classes, better facilities and a virtual escalator to university.
"Our Broken Escalator," by Nicholas D. Kristof (column, July 17), is a stirring call to defend and rebuild America's deteriorating education system.
"But during the festival, you look on the escalator at Hollywood & Highland and you see an agent talking to someone who works in education.
